


The Tale Of The Long Distance Romance

by afteriwake



Series: The Family Business [16]
Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan returns to New York after her trip to London and Holmes decides he's going to borrow her phone for a bit, having some fun with Joan's new boyfriend. When Joan finally gets her phone back she finds that maybe her Sherlock isn't so bad after all, especially after she talks to Lestrade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale Of The Long Distance Romance

**Author's Note:**

> I am _finally_ picking this series up for a bunch of bingo fills at **land_deduction** 's Bingo challenge. The bingo fill prompt for this story is "phone." I promise, by the end of April (or possibly May) I will have all the fics I should have written before I posted the one where Irene gave birth finished and you can all enjoy the series in its complete order. Hope you guys like this one!

Joan arrived back in New York a week after New Year's Day, with a huge grin on her face and a spring in her step. Holmes watched her walk into the brownstone as he ate a bowl of cereal. “Someone is quite chipper this morning,” he remarked.

“Well, I'm glad to be home,” she said, wheeling her suitcase into the kitchen. “London is nice, but I missed home.”

“I think you find London quite nice, considering how much time you spent there,” he said with a smirk.

“Yes, well, there's a lot to like about London,” she said.

“Including a certain Detective Inspector?” he teased before taking another bite of his breakfast.

“Yes, including a certain Detective Inspector” she said with a slight scowl. “I know you're going to tease me about it so you might as well start now.”

“On the contrary,” he said, setting down his bowl. “I'm happy for you, even if you and everyone else there completely ignored my presence after a few days.”

She looked sheepish. “I'm really sorry about that.”

“It's all right. I suppose love is in the air,” he said with a shrug. “I'm just glad I had someone to come home to. If I had had to deal with being in the brownstone by myself I'd have died of boredom.”

“Stop being melodramatic,” she said, rolling her eyes. She opened her mouth to say more but her text alert message went off. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and smiled as she read the text, and then she keyed in a response.

Holmes moved behind her and read over her shoulder. “'I hope the flight went well and you arrived safely,'” he said.

“Sherlock, don't read my texts!” she said, turning to look at him.

Sherlock grabbed her phone from her at that point. “And you replied that it went well and while you're happy to be home you miss him,” he said, moving away from her.

“Sherlock!” she said warningly. She moved over to him. “Give me back my phone.”

Another text message came in. “He says he misses you too,” Holmes said with a grin. He stood still for a moment and keyed in a reply.

“Oh my God, really?” she asked, moving closer to him. She reached for her phone but he held it over his head. “Sherlock, give me my phone. _Now_.”

“In a minute,” he said. She made a grab for her phone again but he kept it over her head. “Be careful or I might drop it and crack the screen.”

“Do that and you'll have to buy me a new phone.” She glared at him as another text message came in. “Don't you dare type in anything else.”

“Oh, but I have to respond,” he said with a grin, moving around her. He quickly walked to the living room, typing on her phone as he walked. She moved towards him but he was too fast. Finally she got over to him and grabbed her phone from his hands just as he sent another message. “You'll find I didn't send anything risqué.”

She glared again before reading the texts. “'I'm glad you let her come home,'” she read. “'We missed her.'” Her glare softened. “I thought you would be sending something...worse.”

“Read his response. The first one.”

She looked at it and smiled. “That's actually really sweet,” she said. “And so is your response.”

“Well, it's the truth,” he said. “You are my best friend, and I would have been cross if you'd left here permanently.”

“I think that's the first time you've ever admitted that.”

“Admitted what?” he asked.

“That I'm your best friend,” she said with a widening smile. “It probably hurt you to have to admit that.”

“I'm the one who sent the text with that fact, remember?” Holmes said, crossing his arms and looking at her. “And to be honest, it didn't hurt a bit. You are, and it was time I admitted the truth.”

“Well, you're one of my best friends, too,” she said. “I wouldn't have stayed to help if you weren't.” Holmes was going to respond when footsteps were heard on the stairs. They both turned to see Irene coming towards them, yawning. Joan looked sheepish. “Oh my God, did we wake you up? If we did I'm so sorry.”

“It's all right,” she said with a smile. “I don't sleep for long once he leaves the bed.” Irene came over to Joan and gave her a hug. “It's good to see you again.”

Joan hugged her back. “It's good to see you too. I missed both of you and everyone else here.”

“You didn't miss us too much, though, right?” Irene said with a chuckle as she pulled away. “I'm sure you had someone else captivating your attention.”

“I did,” Joan said. “But I still missed everyone here.”

“You'll have to tell me all about the things you did in London,” Irene said as the three of them made their way back into the kitchen. “Starting with each of your dates.”

Joan gave her a wide grin. “We'll probably bore Sherlock to tears.”

Irene waved her hand, but she gave her boyfriend a smile. “It's time for some girl talk. Sherlock can go amuse himself elsewhere.”

Sherlock shook his head and sighed, though he looked amused. “I'll be off watching the news. Or something. You two enjoy catching up.” He went to the counter and picked up his bowl of cereal and went to the sofa.

Joan and Irene chatted for a while, and Joan realized it was nice to share the events of her vacation with her. After an hour Joan wrapped up her stories and then she made her way to her bedroom with her luggage. When she got to her room she went to her bed and sat down, pulling her phone out again. She pulled up Lestrade's contact and hit send. He picked up after three rings. “You didn't want to let me leave?” she asked him, warm smile on her face.

“Not particularly, no,” he said with a chuckle. “I wasn't really looking forward to there being an ocean between us.”

“I'm not looking forward to that, either,” she said after a moment, her smile dimming. “And the five hour time difference isn't pleasant.”

“No, it isn't, but we'll manage. I like what we have.”

“Yeah? Well, I like it too.” She leaned back on her bed. “I suppose we'll just have to adjust.”

“I've put in for some vacation time soon,” he said. “I don't know when I'll get it, but it's three weeks.”

“That's a lot of vacation time,” she said.

“Well, I haven't taken any of it in five years. I actually have more, but I figured in three weeks you might start getting tired of me.”

“I won't get tired of you, Greg,” she said quietly. “And you know, I can always go back to London to visit. It's not like I'm at the hospital still. Sherlock can do just fine without me for a week or two.”

“Well, I'd like to see you again soon,” he said.

“You really didn't want me to leave, did you?” she asked thoughtfully.

“If I could have convinced you to stay for another few weeks I would have. But I could see you were getting homesick. When you said you were going to go back I didn't try and stop you because I would have been selfish.”

“I could have stayed an extra week,” she replied.

“Now you tell me,” he said wryly.

She laughed. “I'm sorry.” She looked at her clock and saw it was almost noon her time, which meant it was nearly five in the evening for him. “You'll be getting dinner soon, won't you?”

“Not any time soon. I'm waiting for Molly to give me some autopsy results, so I'm still at St. Bart's. She just started the other one so I migrated towards the cafeteria. Nothing on the menu seems appealing for supper. I really want fish and chips and a cold pint.”

“I thought you'd only go there when she was finished,” she said with a frown.

“Two bodies,” he said.

“Ah. She had one finished but not the other?”

“Exactly. So I have some time to spare.”

“I can help keep you occupied,” she said, the smile coming back on her face.

“I would like that very much,” he said with a chuckle. “We can always go back to a few conversations we'd started while you were here.”

“All right, Greg. What did you have in mind?”

“I liked the stories you were telling me about your residency, if you have any more of those,” he said.

“I have a few,” she said, and then they talked about that before the conversation drifted to other things. One thing she had enjoyed a lot about being there was talking to him, and she found that didn't diminish with all the distance between them. It was nearly two hours later when he told her Molly was there and she was finished, so they said their good-byes and hung up. She looked at her phone for a few minutes, a wide smile on her face. As long as they were able to talk she could handle the long distance thing, she thought to herself. Whatever it was that was going on between them was definitely worth exploring, and that made her feel pretty damn good about things.


End file.
